NATION : Explosions Rock Texas Plant
A series of explosions rocked a chemical plant today, sending a thick column of fire and black smoke into the sky and tossing 55-gallon drums up to 300 feet into the air.
At least two people were reported injured, a police dispatcher said. Residents of downtown Houston, about 20 miles away, could see the smoke and flames.
The explosions at the Solvents and Chemicals Inc. plant began about 11:30 a.m. and continued for at least 90 minutes as barrels of chemicals exploded.
“We had an explosion, and we’ve got 55-gallon drums going up like rockets,” said Fire Department Capt. Robert Coonan.
“I was standing by this warehouse and, real sudden, everything was popping and blowing up and people were running away from it,” a witness said. “All of a sudden there were barrels popping up 200 or 300 feet up in the air. It was mass hysteria when it went up.”
Mandatory evacuations were ordered in a two-mile radius of the plant, and the order was believed to affect about 1,000 people.
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